(I wonder when the people who raised bloody hell about Qaddafi
being toppled will begin to turn their attention to Vietnam. To
avoid flame wars, I am not going to mention any names.)
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-vietnam-solution/8969/
Nothing better illustrates the Vietnamese desire to be a major
player in the region than the country’s recent purchase of six
state-of-the-art Kilo-class submarines from Russia. A Western
defense expert in Hanoi tells me that the sale makes no logical
sense: “There is going to be real sticker shock for the Vietnamese
when they find out just how much it costs merely to maintain these
subs.” More important, the expert says, the Vietnamese will have
to train crews to use them—a generational undertaking. “To counter
Chinese subs,” the expert says, “they would have been better off
concentrating on anti-submarine warfare and littoral defense.”
Clearly, the Vietnamese bought these submarines as prestige items,
to say We’re serious.
The multibillion-dollar deal with Russia for the submarines
includes a $200 million refurbishment of Cam Ranh Bay—one of the
finest deep-water anchorages in Southeast Asia, astride the South
China Sea maritime routes, and a major base of operations for the
U.S. military during the American War. The Vietnamese have stated
that their aim is to make Cam Ranh Bay available to foreign
navies. Ian Storey, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies in Singapore, writes that an unspoken Vietnamese desire is
that the Cam Ranh Bay overhaul will “strengthen defence ties with
America and facilitate the US military presence in South-east Asia
as a counter to China’s rising power.” Cam Ranh Bay plays
perfectly into the Pentagon’s “places not bases” strategy, whereby
American ships and planes can regularly visit foreign military
outposts for repairs and resupply without the need for formal,
politically sensitive basing arrangements.
A de facto American-Vietnamese strategic partnership, in effect,
was announced in July 2010 at an ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in
Hanoi, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S.
has a “national interest” in the South China Sea, that the U.S. is
ready to participate in multilateral efforts to resolve
territorial disputes there, and that maritime claims should be
based on land features: that is, on the reach of continental
shelves, a concept violated by China’s historic line. Chinese
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called Clinton’s remarks “virtually
an attack on China.” American officials shrugged off Yang’s
comments. Since then, the Obama administration has announced plans
to rotate 2,500 marines in and out of northern Australia, declared
that Pentagon budget cuts will under no circumstances come at the
expense of U.S. forces in the Pacific, and announced the
intention—events permitting—to “pivot” away from the Middle East
and toward the Pacific. The United States sees the world as
Vietnam does: threatened by growing Chinese power. The difference
is that whereas the United States has many geopolitical interests,
Vietnam has only one: to counter China.
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